All Entries in the "Blog Design" Category

Why Do I Need a Blog?

Why do I need a business blog and why should I hire someone to manage it for me?

By now, most business Website Owners have learned there are advantages to having a company blog. But why do I need a company blog? How will it really help me?

Most bloggers, even those who have been blogging for a long time, do not truly understand all of the ways a blog can benefit your business. They are good bloggers. They even may know a little about SEO and can put all the keywords and phrases into your blog. But do they really know about blog marketing and what the benefits are for their clients? Do they really know SEO or the technical aspects of operating a blog?

Do you know all of the benefits of having a business blog?

Let’s see;

Why does my Business need a Blog?

A business blog is the most cost-effective way to add fresh content to your website daily.

It is the most affordable way to build link popularity.

A business blog can make you money through Conversational Marketing.

A business blog will help drive more traffic to your website.

It gives you a place to offer special deals, make announcements, issue press releases, and get feedback from customers.

You can have a private blog that your employees or shareholders read.

There are way too many ways your company can benefit from a business blog to list on one page. As they say; “Think Outside The Box” and create new ways blogs can be used. All the uses for a blog have not even been invented yet. Be the first to try something new. Call us at 786-317-8774 and get a free business blog consultation. We’ll brainstorm with you!

Your business blog can be within your website or on it’s own domain name.

Your company blog can be used to help capture a specific search phrase or phrases in the search engines.

You can have a company blog in your website and one on its’ own domain name, each achieving a different purpose.

You can have multiple blogs all working for you at the same time. The options are endless.

It is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Our Blog Consultant will talk with you, analyze your business, and come up with a strategy that benefits your business. Click here to get a free business blog management quote.

Blog Management and Marketing

Blog Content

Your blog content will make a lot of difference to how well you do with both the search engines and with visitors. Whatever your goal is for your blog, to make your blog popular to read, to make sales, to drive traffic to your website, to get people to sign up for something like a newsletter or affiliate program, or something else, you will need good, original content.

Not only do you need good original content on your blog, you need it every single day.
Blog search websites like technorati.com and Google’s BlogSearch list blogs by the most recent posts that match the user’s keywords. If you are not posting daily, you can get buried beneath all of the other blogs that do one post or more every day. Our daily blogging service will make sure your blog is updated every day or more often if you choose that option.

Blog Posting is more than just writing. If you want your blog to be interesting to user and also rank well in the search engines, you need to know how to structure your blog posts properly.

Do you know the proper way to write your blog post titles?

Do you know how to use keywords in your blog post for the search engines without seeming spammy or obvious to your readers?

Do you know how to use good anchor text and a proper linking strategy?

Our bloggers are trained to write relevant, interesting blog posts that are also optimized for the search engines. Read more about our Daily Blog Posting Service.

Social Bookmarking and Social Networking

Social Bookmarking and Social Networking are extremely beneficial to your blog. It can help you with link popularity, attracting more visitors to your blog, more comments on your blog posts, and even help you rank better with the search engines. However, social bookmarking is time consuming.

Many people try to automate the process for that reason. Automated social bookmarking will not get you all of the benefits that social networking will get you if you take the time to do it yourself. Most business owners do not have the time it takes to participate on these social networks. That is why Blog Content Provider does it for you. Our basic social bookmarking package comes with our Daily Blogging Service, but we also offer social bookmarking as a standalone service. Read more about our Social Bookmarking Service.

Professional Full Service Blog Management

Let our staff completely manage your business blog for you. We will handle everything. We will choose a domain name for you where necessary, provide blog hosting, do the installation, create or choose a blog template, optimize your blog for the search engines, provide the daily content, and do the social bookmarking. You turn your business blog over to us and we do it all for you. Read more about our Complete Business Blog Management Service.

Blog SEO and Programming

Blog Installation

Wordpress claims you can install wordpress in just 7 minutes. Some cpanels have fantastico that will automatically create a database and install wordpress for you. But is that all there is to installing a wordpress blog? No. There are better ways to securely install a wordpress blog on your server.

Then you need to choose the right plugins to enhance the usability and improve the SEO of your blog. Every blog is different. Every blog has different goals and obstacles. So choosing the right plugins is more than just going to someone’s favorite list of plugins and using them all.

Some blog service companies brag that they install wordpress with more than 80 plugins! Wow! 80! How many of those plugins do you really need? Usually just a few. We securely install your wordpress blog and choose plugins for you that fit your specific needs. Read more about Blog Installation.

Blog Setup and Configuration

A lot of people will tell you that choosing the settings in the admin area of your wordpress blog is self-explanatory. To who? There are a lot of choices to make in the admin area.

An experienced Blog Manager knows which settings are best to use from experience. For instance;

Do you know the best sites to put into your ping list?

Do you know the proper way to create categories?

Post Slugs?

Is time-stamping a good idea?

Do you know how to configure all of the plugins or get an API Key?

Our Blog installation specialists will set everything up for you. Read more about Blog Configuration.

Blog Theme Installation and Editing

Here again, it sounds easy. You choose a theme, upload it to your themes directory, and voila! You’re done right? No. Choosing a theme isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are tons of free themes on the web. You could buy one from a designer. You can have one custom made for you.

Do you know a good theme from a bad one? I mean besides how pretty it is. Did you know that sometimes free themes have hidden malicious code in them, put there by the programmer/designer?

Are you able to determine good code from bad code? Is the code in the theme written in a way that will hurt your chances in the search engines?

Do you know how to edit the php in the header.php file, sidebar.php, or footer.php to add the enhancements that will make your blog both more attractive and more productive?

Choosing the right theme for your blog is more than just finding one that looks nice. You do not need to have a custom blog theme built. You can use a free blog theme. But you need to know how to choose the right one. Our Blog Installation Service includes choosing and installing the right theme for you. If you want a custom theme, you can read more about Custom Blog Themes here.

Blog SEO

You need to optimize your blog for the search engines. That means editing the code of your blog theme, setting up proper permalink structure, creating the right categories, and even choosing the right plugins, among other things. Our Blog SEO specialists go over your blog theme line by line to get rid of unwanted or unnecessary code.

We fix the blog title structure. We install and configure your blog plugins. We create a proper permalink structure. We edit your blog template to install feedburner, email scripts, affiliate buttons, or whatever else you need. Our clients are very happy with the search engine rankings their blogs are getting. Let us show you how we can improve your results. Read more about Blog SEO.

If you are not sure what you need, call us at 786-317-8774 for a free business blog management or SEO consultation.

Blog Theme Customization: Is It Worth It?

Should you customize your blog theme? It’s a question that every company will have to consider when starting a new blog. Or why not just go with an off-the-shelf blog theme?

There are pros and cons to using a theme right off the shelf without any customization. One pro is an off-the-shelf blog theme will not cost you anything. It’s free. If you want to customize your blog theme then you’ll run into additional expenses. You will, after all, have to pay the designer who does the work for you.

The most important aspect of this decision is in choosing a theme that is well optimized. You do not want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a blog theme customization only to find out that the theme isn’t well optimized and won’t get crawled by the search engine spiders. That’s why the designer you choose to perform the customization is as important as the blog theme itself. Your designer should have an understanding of search engine optimization and know what the search engines are looking for before he ever touches your blog theme.

When it comes to blog optimization, many off-the-shelf templates do the trick. But you still need to have an optimization expert look at your theme to see if it is well optimized for search. It’s the most important aspect of your blog theme’s design. The actual design is a close second.

Blog Optimization: Template Or Original Design?

Should you use a blog template or have an original design for your blog? That’s an important question. There are pros and cons to both approaches.

If you use a blog template you run the risk of your template not being optimized properly. You might also find yourself using a template that thousands of other bloggers are using as well. That lack of originality might work against you in some industries. But pulling a template off the shelf can be easier and much less costly than having an original design done.

To be sure, there is no substitute for originality. Original designs tell your readers that you take pride in your business. But if you go with an original blog design be prepared to pay for it. Templates are free. Original designs, unless you do them yourself, are not. And another thing you have to be sure of with an original design is that your designer is familiar enough with SEO to optimize your design properly. If you hire a designer whose knowledge of SEO is not adequate you have no recourse. You are stuck with a non-optimized blog. With a template you can change it out for another one at no cost.

If you have the money to pay for an original blog design then by all means, go ahead and put forth the expense. But in today’s economy that’s a challenge for many businesses. That’s why you might be better off with a blog template. But who’s going to select one for you? Make sure your blog consultant knows how to tell the difference.

Add A Twitter Badge To Your Blog The Hard Way

I decided I’d put a Twitter badge on a client’s blog so I went looking for Twitter badges. Man are they hard to find. Well, if you have a Twitter account and you are active in your account then you should add a Twitter badge to your blog. What better way to attract new followers than right there on your blog?

Here’s what you need to do to find that Twitter badge:

1. From your Twitter page, click on “Help”
2. In the left sidebar you’ll see “Twitter FAQ” – CLICK ON IT
3. Click on 1.1.FAQ
4. Scroll down
5. Keep scrolling down
6. Scroll, like, all the way down until you see “Can I put Twitter on my blog?“
7. Click the link using “put a Twitter badge” as anchor text in the “Can I put Twitter on my blog?” paragraph

Yikes! That’s seven steps just to find the page on which the badges can be found. Five if you count the three step scroll function as one. Facetiousness aside, you’d think that Twitter would make it easier for bloggers to find badges for their blog. And, I’m a bit disappointed in the limited choices available. Oh, well.

Instead of the above seven-step process, just click here and you’ll go to the Twitter badge page. Or you can go to http://twitter.com/badges. Now, from here:

• Click the type of widget you want to use (again, I’m disappointed they don’t have one for WordPress – the most popular blogging platform); if you use WordPress, click “Other”
• Choose the type of badge you want
• Customize your badge
• Copy the code
• Inside WordPress, click on Design then Theme Editor
• Click on the Sidebar php file you want to edit
• Insert the widget code where you want it to appear in the sidebar
• Update file
• Visit Site and make sure the badge appears the way you want it to appear

Don’t have the time to install your own badge? We’ll do it for you. Call Chris at 786-317-8774 or visit the website and fill in our contact form.

The Importance Of Your Blog Theme

Many new bloggers do not fully understand the importance of a blog theme. There are several things to think about when choosing a blog theme, chief among them is the ability to optimize it for search performance. When it comes to SEO, not all blog themes are created equal. But SEO is not the only thing that is important. Other things to think about in choosing a blog theme are:

• Design – Is your blog theme attractive?
• Niche – Does your blog theme fit your niche well?
• Easily Adaptable – Can you modify your theme with ease or is the code too thick?
• Widgetized – I don’t like widgetized blog themes for myself, but many bloggers like them. They do make certain aspects of modification easier, especially if you are not good at messing around with code. If you prefer widgets then make that a point for your blog theme. If you are like me and would prefer to modify your files directly then FTP them back to your server then don’t worry about widgets.
• Plugins – Does your blog “freak out” when you use certain plugins? You might try another one.
• Archives – I’ve had several blog themes whose archives don’t work properly. Either choose another one or download the SRG Clean Archives plugin. You’ll have to modify your sidebar somewhat to use it, but it’s fairly easy to do.

When it comes to choosing an appropriate blog theme for your new blog, make sure you get one that is optimized for search, attractive, and appropriate for your niche.

How To Increase Your Clicks On Your AdSense Ads

A lot of people have high hopes for their AdSense blogs. Too high, actually. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make money on AdSense with your blog. I have one blog that only gets about 1/10th the clicks as other properties I own, but the income is double. How is that, you say?

No. 1, you have to choose a keyword niche that is profitable. Do your research. Find out what topics are clicked on the most and what keywords offer the highest payouts on AdSense.

But there is one other thing that you can do to increase your AdSense blog’s ROI and click through rate, no matter what the payout is on the clicks. This one thing can increase your CTR by 100%. It’s just a simple tweak and all you have to do is make this one change to your template’s CSS or php file and you’re in business.

What’s the tweak? The color of your in-text links. I’m not talking about your AdSense links. I’m assuming you know how to optimize your AdSense ads. I’m talking about your blog post links. If you don’t use links in your blog posts, that’s even better. Why tempt your readers to click a link that won’t make you money? But what if you do use links in your blog? Make sure those links don’t show up in blue like normal links. That will tempt people to click those links and they won’t click your ads. Instead, change your CSS file to make links appear the same color as your other text. That will make internal post links indistinguishable from surrounding text and you’ll get more clicks on your AdSense ads.

Need a blog ghostwriter?

Will A Quick Glance Catch Their Attention

If you check your blogs statistics you can see whether or not your content is holding your readers attention. If you have a high bounce rate and a low page read, your not selling your content and quick glance doesn’t hold their attention.

Your blog should be set up in such a way that a reader can quickly see what is on offer. Most visitors scan and if the scanning shows value, they will either bookmark to come back later, or settle back and start reading. The key to catching their attentions is a simple as black and white.

White Space

The first key is white space – not plenty of it, but carefully balanced. The idea of white space is to enable the important information to stand out, particularly paragraph headings. White space around graphics can also be important. To get white space around your graphics, include the vspace=”x” and hspace=”x” at the end of the graphics code: the number in brackets represents pixels. For example, your code may look like the following (I have omitted the opening and closing < >)

img src=”http://yourimageurl.jpg” alt=”suitable alt tag” align=”alignment” vspace=”10″ hspace=”10″

That code will place a white space of 10 pixels around your image.

Black Space

Black space of course is your text. You need to highlight the important sections, such as paragraph heading by using bold or a strong color. If there is sufficient white space, the ‘black’ section should stand out. Another example of using ‘black’ within whitespace is by using bullets or numbering. These work particularly well for short sentences as their use creates plenty of white space.

The use of black and white space has been a technique used successfully over the years by marketing consultants, particularly when it comes to flyers and business cards. Used carefully, a quick scan of your content should be enough to sell the opportunity to stop and read. Let us check out your white space with a free blog consultation.

3 Things Your Blog Needs To Succeed

When it comes to business blogging, or commercial blogging, it’s not the same thing as personal blogging or blogging to make money. You are blogging to make money, but you are not trying to squeeze out revenue from your blog. You are using your blog as a marketing tool to lead people to your website so that you can close the sale and make money on your products and services. Your blog is the lead generator; your website is the salesman.

So what does your lead generation blog need in order to do its job well? Here are the three absolutely essential ingredients to make sure your company blog stands out and drives traffic to your website:

1. Quality, original content – Every day. We’re not talking about private label rights or recycled eye candy. Graphics are nice, but content is better. Eat a meal and not just a snack! Take your company talking points and turn them into a blog by getting into a real conversation with your customers about their needs and your desire to fill a niche within the marketplace. It all starts with quality, original content.
2. Links – You need to link to your website. Not just the home page either. I’m talking about real links to every page that is important on your website. And your links need to be in the body of your blog posts as well as in your sidebar blogroll. Take your important keywords and turn them into anchor text and link to each page on your website using the appropriate anchor text.
3. The right template – It can be custom-made, but it doesn’t have to be. An off-the-shelf template works just as well as long as it is SEOd properly. Your blog template needs to be crawlable so making sure that the code in your template makes it easy for the search engines to find what they need is absolutely essential. Your blog template must be able to attract a reader’s eye quickly and not drive them away, so attractiveness is important but even an ugly template with the right SEO will get you the traffic you are looking for. When it comes to getting ranked in the search engines, SEO is far more important than being pretty.

These are the three most essential elements to a successful company blog. Other things are nice, but without these three things going for you, you might as well hang it up. Everything else is gravy.

Are You Protected From Blog Security Issues?

Recent news from Technorati should have all WordPress bloggers checking their blogs, particularly their blog content for any hidden links. If you have used WordPress versions pre 2.3.3 then your blog may have been compromised.

It seems spammers had found a way of getting into your posts and leaving small hidden links to sites – generally speaking, sites that you would not want to be connected to. This has several consequences which as bloggers, could be quite serious.

Google Penalty

As they are using hidden text, this could see you coping a penalty from search engines like Google. They consider hidden text within your blog content to be a black hat technique to get higher rankings.

Lose your Technorati index

Technorati will discontinue indexing blogs that are using WordPress pre version 2.3.3 because of the security problems and the potential for spam links.

These issues have serious consequences for anyone who blogs. If you rely on a blog to promote your business then you can ill afford the loss of resource such as Technorati.

The solution of course is very straightforward. Either upgrade your WordPress blog to version 2.3.3 or go straight to the top and do the upgrade to 2.5. The bottom line is, can you afford to have your blog compromised? Can you afford to have your Google ranking penalized? Can you afford to lose a valuable resource such as Technorati? Three strikes and your out. I think its time to upgrade.

Blog Template Or Original Design?

When you set up a blog you have a very important decision to make regarding design. Should you select an off-the-shelf template or select a blog design? There are advantages to doing it both ways. Here’s a run down of the benefits you can expect from going either direction:

Blog Template – If you choose a blog template for your business, you first need to consider what is the appropriate template for your blog. Not all blog templates are created equal. One of the most important considerations you’ll need to make is the optimization of your template. You can choose an attractive blog template, but if it isn’t optimized for search engines then it’s not important how pretty it is. Here are some other things you need to think about for templates:

• One side bar or two? Give this careful thought. If you have two sidebars – right and left, two on the right, or two on the left – then you have less space in the middle where your posts are. You might have more space for things like ads, blogroll, etc. but is it worth it? What will go into your sidebars? What is necessary and what is fluff? You’ll need to know. If you are running an affiliate blog then you might want two sidebars for all the affiliate banner ads you plan to display, but if your blog is a company blog for a service business then you might not want those distractions in your sidebar at all.
• Who else is using your template? Some people say if you are using a popular template then you are cutting your business short. It depends. Are a lot of people in your industry using the same template? If so then you might want to reconsider using it and go with an original design or another template. But if not then you might be OK with a particular template.
• Templates are free. You don’t have to pay for a blog template. But you will have to pay a designer to design you an original design.
• Could be easier to install. A template might be easier to install depending on how the orgiginal blog template is designed. Be sure that you understand any installation issues with a custom designed template.

Original Design – Pride of ownership is a big selling point. If you have an original blog design then you own it. It’s yours. No one else can copy it. You can boast of your originality and it can look really cool, give you a big boost in your image to your targeted customers. That’s a huge selling point. But is that the only benefit?

• Sidebars. You still have to decide how many sidebars you want. You can also give your original design other bells and whistles like dynamic footers, flash headers, etc. but be careful with those because you still have to consider search engine optimization. Don’t get so snazzy that your blog doesn’t pass the SEO test.
• Cost. Can you afford to pay a fancy designer to build you a blog design? Custom blog designs can run anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. Can you afford it? Many bloggers who have purchased a custom blog design have said that it was well worth the expense and that through advertising they have more than made up for it. But that isn’t the case with all of them. Plan your monetization strategy well and make sure that you can afford the expense before you invest.
• Installation. Will you be installing the design yourself or will you have to pay someone to install it. Some custom designs require that you pay a technical person to set it up just right for you. Be sure you consider that expense, if necessary.

There are benefits to having your own design, but that doesn’t mean you should do it. For a lot of people, the cost far outweighs the benefits. It is something you have to give careful consideration to before you invest in an expensive design. The content of your blog is far more important than design and that is something you should always keep in mind.